


Choked Out

by sourcheeks



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Wrestling, F/M, Songfic, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, in the loosest sense of the term
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-14
Updated: 2019-08-14
Packaged: 2020-08-23 12:54:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20243212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sourcheeks/pseuds/sourcheeks
Summary: Magnus is dealing with Julia's death the way all professional wrestlers deal with everything. Which is to say, poorly.





	Choked Out

**Author's Note:**

> Title from The Mountain Goats song of the same name  
This is not proofread because it made me very sad

Magnus stands in the center of the ring, at the middle of the huddle of wrestlers. Lucretia is on the microphone, voice tight. 

“We lost two amazing members of this community on - on Sunday. Julia Waxman-Burnsides and her father, Steven…” Lucretia takes a sharp breath. Magnus is glad he’s not the one who has to do this. He’s even more glad speeches aren’t the custom - he couldn’t sit through another eulogy. He’d break. “We’d like a moment of silence as we honor their memory with the ten-bell salute.”

The wrestlers in the ring and the audience stand in solemn silence as Johann rings the bell - ten stolid, spaced out tones, not the rampant, quick ringing that Magnus normally associated with a wrestling bell. Magnus cries, tears soaking into his mask. Jess holds his hand. The bell rings for a tenth time, and Magnus has never been happier to leave a ring. 

* * *

It was weeks before he wrestled, the longest he had gone outside of the ring since he started. He was main-eventing with Jess, in a match that should have been his wife’s. It’s fine. He can do a shoot match with Jess. Jess was the only person he had worked with longer than - Jess was the person he had worked the longest with. No one talks to him in the locker room. A couple of the other guys give him reassuring touches - a squeeze of the shoulder, a pat on the back. Magnus doesn’t meet any of their eyes. They don’t try to meet his. He buckles his mask beneath his chin, going to wait beside the entry door. 

He plasters on a smile as best as he can for his entrance, trying to let the bright, happy music into his brain. It works for exactly as long as it takes to get to the ring, but that’s as long as he needs it. 

Jess is babying him. She had never once, as long as they wrestled together, pulled her punches. She’s doing it now, tapping him light as anything with the flats of her fingers and heel of her hand, smacking her thigh. Magnus refuses to sell on principle, hauling back and punching her in the jaw. 

It gets the message across. Jess starts hitting him for real, backing him into the corner. He headbutts her, getting out when she stumbles, running to the other end of the ring. He clotheslines her and sends her flying over the ropes - not easy, considering their height difference. He rolls out after her, dragging her up. She grabs the ear of his mask and smashes his face into the apron. 

“Just so you know, Magnus,” Jess whispers to him, face twisted like she was cursing him out, though her tone remained gentle. “This is kind of a shitty way to cope.”

Magnus gives her a big, bloody-nose smile, and he grabs her, lifting her onto his shoulders for a Samoan drop. He drops her on the apron, not the hard floor - he doesn’t want to kill her. 

Jess drags him around the ring for a bit as penance before she gets him in the Behead-Her ( _ behead-him _ , Magnus thinks, and it’s not any more funny than the hundred other times that he had made the joke). Magnus writhes and kicks and he  _ doesn’t _ tap, turning his head while the ref isn’t looking and biting the meat of her thigh. Jess screams - her “just for show” scream so he knows she’s okay - and her legs break apart, letting Magnus out. 

He could pin her like this. But it’s not what Julia would do. 

Face wet with blood and sweat, mask askew and partially covering his face, lungs and throat still stinging from the Behead-Her, Magnus climbs up the ropes. 

It is the first time he has ever managed to pull of Julia’s shooting star press, landing squarely on Jess. The crowd pops like a grenade and Magnus gets Jess down for the three, letting the ref lift his hand. He hobbles back to the locker room, getting in the shower with his mask still on. He watches the bloody, pink water go down the drain, not taking the mask off until it runs clear. 

“Are you proud of me?” he mumbles to the showerhead. Julia doesn’t answer, but he thinks she would be. “I finally did it. I told you I would do that move for you eventually.” He’s crying again. “I miss you. I love you.” 

Magnus doesn’t leave the shower until he’s done crying. He gets dressed and packs up in silence just like he had gotten into his ring gear, and he leaves before they’ve even taken the ring down. No one stops him. 

He drives home without Julia in the passenger seat. He goes home and Julia isn’t in bed. Next week they have cancelled his tag team match, because Julia can’t be there. Magnus cries again, and he hugs her pillow, and he tries to dream good things.


End file.
